


Broodmother

by My_Beating_Hart



Series: A Mahariel's Travels [13]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dead Trenches, Disturbing Themes, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Nausea, That damn creepy poem, Vomiting, in the second half
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Beating_Hart/pseuds/My_Beating_Hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yep, it's that section from the game. Or, rather, the before and after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“First day, they come and catch everyone.”

Theron's raised hand brought the group to a halt, their clanking footsteps echoing into silence in the winding stone tunnel. Automatically, hands went to weapon hilts.

"Did you hear that?" The Dalish elf asked, frowning. The voice had come from somewhere ahead of them, too soft to echo against the stone, but it still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

The rest of the group looked around warily, expecting another ambush of some sorts. They’d carved a bloody path through the darkspawn in the Dead Trenches, and were exhausted. There was no way of telling time down here, but they couldn’t stop here. It wasn’t safe.

The nightmarishly surreal growths of what looked like flesh piled against walls were growing more frequent, and the sight along with the smell of corruption was making the ranger feel ill. His head hurt from the constant pull of the darkspawn up ahead; there was no way to tell if they were even just around the corner anymore, the further they had travelled down, or if they would have to walk a mile before they came across another group.

Theron let out a breath, rolling his shoulders and stretching his neck. Maybe the strain was getting to him. He glanced back at the group; the fat, smelly _durgen’len_ Oghren who’d insisted on coming with them into the Deep Roads and had filled the usual silences with loud chatter, Sten looming over all of them at the back of the party, and Zevran who lingered nearby, having already pulled out a cloth to try and get rid of some of the drying darkspawn blood on his blades.

Theron sniffed, swallowing at the smell of rotting flesh and corrupted darkspawn, and then shook his head. They should press on, find Paragon Branka, and be done quickly, so they could return to the surface and Theron could wander the woods out in the Frostback Pass. He missed the clear air of the forests, rather than this overheated smell of sickness and fever. The group carried on, the two elves setting their footsteps a little lighter out of habit.

“Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat.”

Theron didn’t have to call the group to a halt this time. From the looks on the other men’s faces, they’d heard it too.

“How lovely.” Zevran sighed as the last of the echoes died away.

“Where’s that coming from?” Oghren grumbled, looking ahead to where the voice might have come from - further down the tunnel.

Theron shrugged, getting the feeling that to answer the question they would need to keep going. He folded his arms over his chest as he began walking again, wishing that he could look up and see the sky rather than dark stone. That he could feel the stirrings of a breeze on his face that was cool and sweet, rather than fetid and overheated. The nausea in his stomach had grown the longer they stayed down here, the further they went into the labyrinth with a drunkard for an unlikely guide. He was a Dalish ranger. He didn’t belong _here_ , of all of the places in Ferelden. His body was starting to actively rebel against him and the ever present corruption that poisoned the air.

They couldn’t stop here, with the growths attached to the walls and floors gleaming so close in the torchlight. Theron had done his best to avoid going anywhere near them. How long had they even been down here? With no sun, there was no way to tell the time. They had unanimously agreed to stop for a ‘night’ when they all felt too tired to keep going and risk stumbling across a darkspawn trap. They’d done this… Four, or was it five times now? Six? Theron shuddered, not liking how even those times were starting to blur together.

First night, they’d been relatively close to the surface. The air hadn’t been stale, the tunnels didn’t need so many flickering torches, and his headache had been a low, ignorable pest. Second night, Zevran had briefly ignored his watch duties and crept into his bedroll while the other two had slept, mischief in his eyes. Third night, Oghren had gotten spectacularly drunk, while his new companions had been a little too nervous of their surroundings beyond take one or two polite sips and have their throats burnt by the strength of the drink. Fourth night, when he’d been on watch by himself and the other three were asleep for the night, he’d found himself staring blankly ahead as he tried to ignore his slowly building headache and the whiff of death and decay slinking down the tunnel towards them like a starved wolf. Four nights, five days.

“Third day, the men are all gnawed on again.”

Theron paused when the voice spoke up again, not feeling as unnerved now despite how strange it was. He kept walking, a hand going to the wood of his bow. The sooner they get out of this damn thaig the better.

“Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate.”

“What a happy story, please do keep going.” Zevran called up sarcastically to the unknown speaker up ahead, moving his hands away from his daggers for the fourth time, and Theron gave him a strained smile.

“Seems we’re all getting a little jittery.” The ranger commented quietly, glancing back. Sten was actively glowering round at the tunnels, even occasionally glancing back over his shoulder, and Oghren made the odd sound of annoyance like an irritated cat, his hand barely leaving the hilt of his waraxe. Zevran nodded in agreement, and stepped a little closer to Theron.

“Fifth day they return, and it’s another girl’s turn.”

Theron raised an eyebrow, but kept walking determinedly. The only way ahead was forward, and there was no way of telling when they would find the source of the voice. Would it be a constant companion to them, echoing down the infested tunnels and guiding them deeper towards Branka? Was it friend or foe? Neither? What if it was a darkspawn trap?

“Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams.”

“Ah. Wonderful.” That was Sten, surprisingly, speaking up for the first time in a while. He’d been quiet since the last darkspawn attack, and that had been long before the voice started talking. Hours, perhaps. Theron looked around, noting how there seemed to be more of the growths lining the wall and swallowing his nausea.

“Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew.”

“Ugh.” Zevran muttered under his breath, visibly disgusted.

“Spewing’s a natural part of life.” Oghren pointed out, and Theron took a deep, sickness laced breath. His headache was setting off painful twinges just beneath his scalp.

“You have never truly encountered darkspawn before, have you?” Sten replied, barely glancing down at the far shorter man.

“Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.”

The voice was growing closer now; the surroundings changed, the tunnel sloped up until it reached a door, as if the tunnel behind them had been carved from the rock behind a building. The growths, the corruption still hung thick in the air. The ranger paused to dig out his waterskin and take a mouthful to try and clear the taste from his tongue. They’d wisely decided to ration their water in case the journey took longer than expected.

Oghren walked on ahead, pushing open the door. Behind him, hands went to weapons, just in case. Many a trap had been pulled once a door was open, so the dead quiet that greeted them was unexpected.

“Ninth day she grins and she devours her kin.”

The room was large and rectangular, angular in the style of the dwarves, but it was filled with what looked like lumps of viscera and more of the growths. The floor was red and sticky underfoot. Theron felt his stomach flip uncomfortably, and he glanced around for the source of the voice. It was louder than it had been in the tunnels, closer.

“Now she does feast, as she’s become the beast.”

Everyone noticed the dwarven woman hunched over at one end of the room, digging around on the bloodstained floor. She didn’t look up as the group came warily through the door.

“First day, they come and catch everyone.” The woman began again, her hands sifting through the gore for something. She paused, and then slowly got to her feet as Theron approached.

He blinked, firstly noting the very awkward angle of her neck that left her head lolling to one side, as if it was broken. When she looked up at him, he saw her eyes were misted over in a way he had seen some times before. She was blind as well?

“What is this? An elf? Exotic and impossible.” The woman muttered, looking down at the floor. How had she known he was an elf? “Feeding time brings only kin and clan. I am cruel to myself. You are a dream of strangers’ faces and open doors.”

She looked sick, even in the dull red light from the torches and carnage around them. Her skin was pale, even for a dwarf, and there were what looked like bruises covering her face, around her blank eyes.

“Is this darkspawn corruption?” Theron asked, frowning slightly in confusion. “It looks… different.”

“The men did that. Their wounds festered and their minds left. They are like dogs, marched ahead, the first to die.”

Oghren shifted uneasily next to Sten.

“Not us. Not me. Not Laryn. We are not cut. We are fed. Friends and flesh and blood and bile and… and…”

Theron looked up at the ceiling, taking a very deep, steadying breath, and inhaled only metallic blood and disease.

“Think about the forest, _mi amor_.” Zevran murmured gently, stepping close just in case the Dalish elf’s legs decided they would buckle and send him to the bloody floor.

“All I could do was wish Laryn went first. I wished it upon her so that I would be spared.” The woman continued. “But I had to watch. I had to see the change.” She frowned. “How do you endure that?” She asked. “How did Branka endure?”

“Are you from Branka’s house?” Zevran asked; Theron didn’t feel much like talking all of a sudden.

The grey-haired woman looked up blankly towards the new speaker.

“D-do not talk of Branka, of what she did. Ancestors preserve us, forgive me. I was her captain and didn’t stop her. Her lover, and I could not turn her.”

Three sets of eyes darted to Oghren.

“No wonder she left him.” The Antivan mused, and Theron weakly nudged him in the ribs.

“Forgive her… But no, she cannot be forgiven. Not for what she did. Not for what she has become.”

“What did she do?” Theron asked, digging for his waterskin again in an attempt to settle his stomach. The sick dwarf straightened up as much as she could, hands balling into fists at her side.

“I will not speak of her! Of what she did, of what we have become! I will not turn!” She snapped, her expression contorted with anger. “I will not become what I have seen! Not Laryn! Not Branka!”

Her whole body tensed, and then before Theron or the others could stop her, she was running across the room and away, footsteps loud on the wet floor. The four of them exchanged a surprised look, and then quickly set off after her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Theron rapidly becomes 100% done even from within his happy place.

The room opened out onto some kind of balcony, similar to the ones in Orzammar, and a yawning expanse of a cavern.The air was not fresh, by any means, but it was cooler and the smell of rotting meat eased slightly. Theron leaned against a low balustrade, eyes closed tightly and lips parted. _He did not belong here._ He was aware of Zevran still standing close, and Sten’s stare of mild concern.

"She became obsessed, that is the word but it is not strong enough. Blessed Stone, there was nothing left in her but the Anvil." The woman’s voice was echoing again from somewhere ahead, and Theron looked down the balcony, at the large doorway opposite them that was wreathed in darkness. His breath caught, and the back of his neck prickled as his headache intensified.

“Darkspawn.” He spat out, pushing himself away from the balustrade and drawing his bow as he backed up to his usual place behind the three melee fighters. Sten nodded once, drawing his greatsword and stepping forwards, and the other two did likewise. For all that Oghren spent his time half drunk or coming up with crude jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood of the expedition, he had proven to be a good, if utterly reckless fighter. A blow from a darkspawn sword had glanced off of him in his first fight with them, and he’d been knocked out for most of it. Sten had had to poke him with the flat of Asala's blade to wake him up.

The group tensed as an ogre stepped out of the shadows and bellowed at them in challenge. Theron carefully aimed his first arrow, trying to compensate for how his hands were trembling slightly with nausea, and let it fly into the ogre’s wrist - not quite his target. The ogre let out a low grunt of pain, and then charged. Sten ran forwards, always the first to meet foes, with Oghren hot on his heels. Zevran glanced back at Theron, flashing him a supportive smirk, and then slipped into the fray with far more finesse.

They weren’t expecting the second ogre that came from around the corner; Oghren noticed it first, and quickly tugged his axe from where it was all but embedded in the first one’s side to go and keep the creature occupied until Sten and Zevran had ensured it’s friend was dead. Theron found his aim was steadier, his arrows hitting his targets more often now the thrill of the fight was running through him, temporarily abating the sick feeling in his stomach, and the second ogre went down with a large amount of arrows prickling it’s hide.

Zevran helped him tug some of the salvageable arrows free while Oghren and Sten compared battle tactics; apparently there were different ways of rushing headlong at an enemy and sticking them with something sharp at close quarters.

“We tried to escape, but they found us. They took us all. Turned us.” The woman’s voice whispered as they approached another set of doors where the second ogre had come from. The door was locked, with no way of picking it, so they walked into the next room. The air smelt cold, dry and musty, reminding Theron of the ruins hidden deep within the Brecilian Forest. Or a tomb. It seemed to be free of corruption and the growths.

“Bownammar.” Oghren huffed in surprise, rubbing his beard. “I’d thought it would have turned to dust by now.”

“We appear to have company.” Sten added, nodding towards a short, glowing form nearby. Theron blinked when he saw there were others merely standing there, watching them indifferently.

“Ghosts? As well as darkspawn and forced cannibalism? These thaigs have everything, do they not?” Zevran chuckled humorlessly, looking around and then up towards the high ceiling.

“Why are they just standing around?” Theron frowned, hand resting on his bow as he approached one of the dwarven spirits carefully, body tensed to leap away from the blow of an ethereal sword or axe.

“Perhaps they do not notice us.” The Qunari suggested, looking towards the centre of the room.

“They’re the Legion of the Dead. Literally, in this case.” Oghren commented.

“It’s… Unnerving.” The Dalish elf sighed. At least the ghosts of the elves in the ruin had talked, even if it had been in old Elvish. These ones were completely silent and unmoving, as if they were stone.

“Do you think there is a key here?” Zevran suggested.

“If not, I hope you and Oghren can break the door in.” Theron smirked weakly as he looked over at Sten, the change in air making him feel like he wasn’t about to throw up, even if his headache was still bad.

“ _Parshaara_.” The giant replied as he wandered past more of the spirits towards the other end of the room.

It wasn’t even a very funny joke or reaction, but Zevran and Theron found themselves grinning stupidly all the same as they lingered by the door.

“D’y’think they’re going to attack?” Oghren mused, waving a gauntleted hand in front of a spirit’s face.

“Unless we are foolish enough to attack them first, I hope they won’t.” Zevran shrugged, casting the ghost closest to him and Theron a suspicious look. The Antivan looked up, towards the other end of the room. “Sten, my fine giant friend, what in the name of Oghren’s stinking breath are you doing?” He called, voice echoing, and he ignored the dwarf’s indignant noises of protest.

“There is a key.” The violet-eyed man reported, holding it carefully in the palm of his hand. It was small and clunky, obviously more suited to dwarven hands than Qunari. There was also a helmet resting on the altar he’d picked the key up from, but it was unneeded, so it would be left.

“Good, then let us-” Zevran’s suggestion that they leave the ghosts to their standing and staring was cut off when one of Theron’s arrows shot dangerously close past his nose. He was about to ask what had possessed the other elf, but then he saw a gleam of movement from the corner of his eye, as one of the spirits turned to them with a sword drawn.

“Oh, of course they’re fine with us taking a key we're only going to use once.” Theron muttered in bitter sarcasm, reaching back in his quiver for another arrow as the rest of the group drew their weapons. “Sten, lose that key and we’ll use you for a battering ram!” He yelled as the battle began. The spirits had strength in numbers; at least five crowded around himself and Zevran, and the other two were caught up in their own battles. Sten’s sword flashed down through one translucent shoulder, and Oghren swung his axe in a sloppy arc through three midsections.

“What a bad time to get stuck with me, no?” Zevran suggested, trying to keep the Legionnaire spirits from reaching Theron.

“Less talking. More fighting. Please.” The ranger shot back tensely as he aimed another arrow. It passed through one Legionnaire’s nose and clattered off the floor, but the ghost fell anyway. Theron hated fighting ghosts; it was impossible to tell whether they took any damage until they 'died' and faded away.

Sten quickly joined the fray near the door, drawing the spirits’ attention to him so they turned their back on Zevran and allowed him to strike far more effectively.

“Is everyone okay?” Theron asked when the last ghost had fallen with a low groan, lowering his bow and glancing around. At least it was easy to collect the arrows this time, he reflected. Oghren was still conscious, luckily, and Zevran was rubbing his arm.

“I think one of those swings caught my arm, but there is no wound.” The blond replied, looking down, but Theron caught his smirk and braced himself for a bad joke. “Simply a phantom pain.”

“I swear one of these days I’m going to unleash Morrigan on you.” The Dalish elf sighed, shaking his head as Zevran snickered to himself. Had Oghren given him a drink from his flask? “Sten, do you still have the key?”

The Qunari nodded, holding it out. It looked absurdly tiny in his hand, was barely bigger than one of his fingers.

“Good, no need to blunt my axe on the door.” Oghren nodded in approval as they left Bownammar.

“The men, they kill… They’re merciful. The women, they want.” The woman’s voice greeted them as they headed towards the locked door, and Theron ran a hand over his braids in frustration. Why did she have to play this game with them? Why not talk normally with them again?

“They want to touch, to mold, to change until you are filled with them.”

Beside the ranger, Zevran grimaced as he sobered up quickly.

“Ugh.” Oghren grunted in disgust.

The door unlocked surprisingly smoothly. There were more piles of glistening flesh and rotting meat, and the ranger’s stomach flipped and twisted like a snake caught by it’s tail.

“They took Laryn. They made her eat the others. Our friends. She tore off her husband’s face and drank his blood.”

Theron stopped abruptly just before the corridor turned to the right, leaning against the cold stone corner with wide, slightly glazed eyes, hands hanging limply by his sides.

“Forests, Theron. Large, old forests. With a poet tree and halla frolicking. Birdsong, sunlight through the leaves.” Zevran reminded him, resting a hand reassuringly on the Warden’s shoulder. “Find a happy place.” He added, knowing they would all need to.

“I am considering finishing the job if we see that woman again, and wring her neck properly.” Sten admitted darkly as he walked one or two paces down the corridor, checking ahead.

“I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much tonight. Or ever again.” Theron mumbled, blinking slowly and then pushing himself off the wall again, steering well clear of a pile of flesh that took up half the corridor.

“None of us will.” Oghren nodded, giving the growths a disgusted look.

“Perhaps when we stop to rest three of us can drink ourselves into unconsciousness, yes?” Zevran suggested, grimacing when he trod in a lump of viscera and heard it squelch under his weight.

“Sounds like a plan. I'll get the good brew out.” The dwarf chuckled as they walked on, back out into the stone tunnels. The ground soon grew soft and damp beneath their feet again, the carnage unavoidable at last.

“And while she ate, she grew. She swelled and turned grey and she smelled like them. They remade her in their image. Then she made more of them.”

Theron froze again when the voice echoed to them, and he let out a frustrated huff, his brow creasing rather than his eyes widening in mute horror again. He’d had enough of someone unseen whispering to him, playing hide and seek. Had enough of the whole unending thaig, of Orzammar and politics and treaties-

"Shut! Up! For the Creator’s sakes!" His sudden, barking yell took everyone by surprise; Zevran started and instinctively drew a dagger, and Sten turned to look at the Warden in alarm. Theron never yelled.

Theron rubbed at his forehead, eyes shut tightly as he muttered and swore to himself in the common tongue and his own. His temples were throbbing, the back of his neck itched like mad in constant warning. _He didn’t belong here. He didn’t want to be here. He needed sunlight and the wilds, not stone tunnels and corruption.  
_

“Get ready for a fight.” He sighed tiredly, voice seeming a whisper after his unexpected outburst as he walked past the rest of the group to check around the corner.

“Broodmother.”

 

Oghren didn’t so much jump off as slip and fall off the Broodmother’s sagging, dying back, landing with a grunt on top of a slack tentacle and a too-soft floor for a stone cave. The fancy elf, the blond one, probably would have come off with the same amount of grace as some dressed up noblewoman descending a flight of stairs, and made it look as easy as squishing a deepstalker. He groaned in annoyance, but got up to help the giant kill the last of the darkspawn that had been summoned by their… Mother.

Finally, the cavern was empty apart from the four of them, reeking of filth and corruption, and it was too humid, too hot.

“That’s where they come from…”

Theron looked up from trying to shakily pull an arrow out of a shriek’s chest to an outcrop of rock that curved behind the Broodmother. He swallowed past the lump in his throat, and then drew his bow again, face a mask of detached neutrality as he twirled an arrow ponderously between his fingers, judging the height and distance with a critical eye even though he felt so weak.

“That’s why they hate us… That’s why they need us. That’s why they take us. That’s why they feed us.” Hespith explained, fidgeting nervously with the sleeves of her dress.

“Oh, I never woulda guessed.” Oghren muttered as he wrenched his axe free from broken armour, and the hurlock clattered noisily to the floor.

“But the true abomination is not that it occurred, but that it was allowed. Branka, my love…” Hespith trailed off, and despite the rolling in his stomach at the repugnant smell coming from the dead thing that had once been Laryn a long, long time ago, Theron was curious enough to not put an arrow through the blind woman’s throat.

“The Stone has punished me, dream-friend. I am dying of something worse than death. Betrayal.”

With that, Hespith was gone. Theron looked around calmly at the slaughter, the towering corruption of nature that had once been a dwarf woman, and then turned and walked slowly back the way they had come, to where the air wasn’t quite as rank and there was no corrupted growth oozing around them.

Zevran followed quietly, not surprised when he found Theron doubled over with a trembling hand pressed against the wall as he violently emptied his stomach, body quivering. The former Crow dug out a cloth that miraculously wasn’t stained with darkspawn blood or poison, and waited quietly a respectful distance away until Theron had stopped retching and had rinsed his mouth out.

The ranger mutely accepted the offered cloth, wiping his lips clean, and briefly rested his shoulder against Zevran’s as he tried to steady himself, obviously not wanting to get too close.

“Hang the Archdemon. That _thing_ was worse.” He muttered, looking very pale and drained.

“I am inclined to agree. Sten did not seem very happy when one of those tentacles picked him up, did he?”

“Mm. I can only hope we never see another one of those again.” The Dalish elf nodded, letting Zevran gently lead him back to where the other two were waiting.

“Branka has a lot to answer for, it seems.” Theron announced, taking a deep breath and preparing himself for whatever else the Dead Trenches could throw at them as he led the way down the next tunnel, further into the earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, like I said, no more updates til the 2nd, or perhaps the 3rd.  
> Good news is that I can now play Inquisition on a far better computer, and my character's getting on rather well with Solas so far.  
> Bad news is that means I may become absorbed by it, so if I suddenly stop updating you can all blame Inquisition.  
> I have maybe 10 fic ideas left to write up, so I'll get started on those.

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi to Oghren at last! Theron's not that impressed by him, but he and Dagna are the only two dwarves in Orzammar he really likes or even tolerates.  
> Also can you tell I'm bad at tagging things yet?


End file.
